Two men who said they had a world-class collection of artwork stolen from their rented Pebble Beach home are accusing the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and its chief spokesman in a new lawsuit of publicly defaming them.

Dr. Ralph Kennaugh and Angelo Amadio reported the theft of millions of dollars of artwork on Sept. 25, 2009, saying the missing collection contained works by Jackson Pollock, Van Gogh, Miro and Rembrandt.

No arrests were ever made, none of the missing art turned up, and the Sheriff’s Office subsequently talked about charging the two men with filing a false police report or insurance fraud. The reported theft drew widespread publicity after Kennaugh and Amadio offered a $1 million reward for the return of the artwork.

But the Sheriff’s Office, within a few days, was painting a different picture of the case, suggesting that something was not right about the big art heist. Kennaugh and Amadio filed a suit Thursday in Monterey County Superior Court accusing the Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Mike Kanalakis and sheriff’s spokesman Cmdr. Mike Richards of defamation and putting the men in false public light.

“A substantial amount of information that the Sheriff’s Department has provided to the media and to the public is severally defamatory toward the plaintiffs,” the suit says. Richards said Friday he couldn’t comment on the suit on the advice of county attorneys, but declared, “We stand behind everything we have said previously.”

The suit, which lists 26 allegedly defamatory statements blamed on the Sheriff’s Office, contends the investigation was directed against Amadio and Kennaugh almost from the start and “continues to look for evidence with the intent to only discredit the plaintiffs.” The suit was filed by Monterey attorney Christopher Cayce. His office declined comment until a press conference Tuesday morning at the Monterey courthouse.

Richards said the investigation remains open, but he declined to say where it is currently focused. The suit alleges that an sheriff’s investigator who first went to the men’s Pebble Beach home — four days after the burglary — questioned Amadio about his relationship with a female friend whose father, a volunteer helicopter pilot for the Sheriff’s Office, strongly disliked Amadio.

“In essence, the friend’s family unfairly branded Amadio a criminal and their specific views were imputed to Amadio by the Sheriff’s Department,” the suit says.

About this allegation, Richards said, “We previously commented that we have no idea what they were talking about.”

He said the investigator didn’t know about any relationship between Amadio and the daughter of the volunteer pilot, and the connection didn’t have any affect on the investigation.

The suit also alleges that the detective made an anti-gay slur directed against Amadio and Kennaugh when he was leaving their home after his first visit in September 2009. And it accuses Richards of referring to them as a couple at a press conference a week later. The suit says the two men are not a couple and that Kennaugh, who is gay, took exception to the detective’s alleged slur as “a slanderous remark with spite and ill will toward gays.”

Richards responded: “No one in their right mind would believe a professional investigator working on a crime scene would say something like that. I think it’s absurd.”

The suit alleges that the two men provided the Sheriff’s Office with detailed information about the stolen artwork only to be publicly described as being uncooperative. Statements pointing the finger at Amadio and Kennaugh portrayed them to the public as “criminals, liars and scam artists,” the suit says.

Most of the alleged defamatory statements cited in the lawsuit came from an Oct. 6, 2009, press conference with Richards. Others included comments the sheriff’s spokesman allegedly made to the media in early October and December 2009 about the case. The suit seeks general and special damages, along with punitive damages against Richards.

The complaint describes Kennaugh as a radiation oncologist and retired Harvard Medical School physician, and Amadio as a business administrator and former law student. Both men, the suit says, now live in Santa Cruz and have enjoyed good reputations “both generally and in their occupation.”

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